Noah would be a game changer. A top5 center to pair with our top5 pg, both the same age and under reasonable contracts for the next two years.

If you can get Noah while keeping Sully and Olynyk, Bradley and Green, then you have yourself the framework for a contender. They would need one more impact wing player to push either Bradley or Green to the bench to create an impact 6th may situation. That could be Afflalo, Hayward, Stephenson...

AND

If you somehow get Noah for as low as Hump plus the Nets 2014 and 2015 picks... you are realy in the hunt for that third possible allstar with a top celtics pick as bait.

Bird does this cuz he gets a healthy SF that can contribute to winning a championship and saves enough cap space to be able to resign Stephenson.

C's get a potental 2nd star to go with Rondo and may be able to resign him for more favorable terms ...

No because that trade does not make sense.

Granger is not a super-star to pair with Rondo. Maybe he'd be an upgrade on Green but not enough to really give the Celtics a boost. His contract ends, so he could walk outright, possibly foricing the Celtics to over-pay him. And finally, we haven't even seen Granger be that productive since coming back from injury. Granger doesn't work.

This doesn't make sense for the Pacers based upon your own reasoning. They barely have cap space to sign Stephenson outright as is (remember Geoge's salary increases) If they did this trade, they would take Granger's expiring and turn that into 9M for Green. They would have no money to sign Lance, unless they go into the tax.

Plus, I don't see Indy breaking up a winning situation at this point. At the end of the season, they let Granger walk and try to sign Lance.